Merging is easy. Just go to file>import from catalogue. They'll be brought in will all the applied settings, virtual copies etc.
Some photographers, who shoot alot, will have more than one working catalogue and then a larger "master" catalogue for searching etc. Just depends on your particular needs.
Thanks Flash, I've imported the other catalog now.
Man, this database structure is tough if you're not used to it. I've created and changed folder names and screwed things up trying to figure this stuff out. LR put a folder where I didn't intend it to go and now won't let me rename it.
I've been grinding through Chris Orwig's course on LR2 on Lynda.com but he just breezes past this stuff very quickly. I guess it will take me some time to figure this out. Bridge is very simple in comparison.
Yes, LR is a deceivingly complicated program. Looks simple, but there's a lot of little gotchas in there. Take your time on every dialog box and be sure all the options are as you want. I know at first you may not know what you want, or what is best, but you'll get there.
As a common practice do all your file and folder moving in LR and it will move things on the OS also. If you move something on the OS then LR doesn't know it. Just as food for thought-some advocate not to even use ANY kind of a folder structure once one starts using LR. Their logic is that images that are properly keyworded and with proper metadata imbeded do not need to live in a structure of any type. They are in the catalog and can easily be found with a simple search. While I understand their point, and it's correct, I still can't tear myself away from a folder structure. But, YMMV.
Separate catalogs for strictly different things, like family vs business, do work out fine for some people. It just depends on how you need it done. But the fewer the better.
You can get more excellent advice and help at www.lightroomforums.net . It's THE source for help, IMO.
The more I use LR the more I find out about it. There are a lot of great features"under the hood". IMO if you're into graphic arts, etc., you have to have full photoshop. If you're a photographer whose main goal is to Optimize the images, LR is one of the best tools out there.
To really get a handle on images database organization you really should pick up a copy of "The DAM Book". I cannot recommend it enough. It will give you a path to standardize as much as you can which ultimately makes it easier to catalog, search, backup, etc.
DO yourself a favour and buy the tutorials Lightroom 2 and "where the @$#% are my pictures from Luminous Landscape. Also if you have itunes subscribe to the several free podcasts on Lightroom.
Lightroom, if you decide to go that way, will effectively replace Bridge, most of the time. It will be the first program you open and the last you close. The only things you wont do in LR will be those LR can't do. Then you'll just choose "edit in Photoshop" from within LR.
It is complex. But getting a hold of some of the more in depth stuff is far easier than Photoshop's learning curve. LR gets easier the deeper you go.
Gordon
p.s. just wait till you find out about some of the plug-ins!
Thanks for the wise words, I will check out the link.
Steve,
A friend tells me that he has a copy of the DAM book, so I will try and borrow that from him. Thanks.
Flash,
The Lightroom tutorials on LL are undoubtedly good advice. I will check them out (but no iTunes for me, I'm afraid). Thanks.
Thanks one and all. I will continue to work away at LR in the hopes of better understanding it and what it can do to organize my files, plus all its other attributes.
lots of folders is important for performance reasons. too many files in one folder and things slow way down. what goes into each folder is a different question. i have a simple folder structure year/month-date-location. this is enough and the database takes care of the rest.
i have two main catalogs - one that goes against only my selects and last 6 months of images. all this is on my main computer. then i have another catalog, maintained on a different computer, going against my entire image archive on the archive server. it's a Vista 64 machine with a lot of RAM and disk space but it's nowhere as fast as my main machine. i do nightly backups from my main machine to my archive machine onto two different copies of my image archive. for my daily editing, i keep a smaller catalog of the most important stuff on my laptop and that is where i do most of my initial cataloging and editing. since most of my image editing is done with most attention to the histogram, i don't need as wide gamut a monitor as otherwise. i have enough licenses of Lightroom for 4 computers.
Herb...
egd5 wrote:
Just as food for thought-some advocate not to even use ANY kind of a folder structure once one starts using LR. Their logic is that images that are properly keyworded and with proper metadata imbeded do not need to live in a structure of any type. They are in the catalog and can easily be found with a simple search. While I understand their point, and it's correct, I still can't tear myself away from a folder structure.
Because I started with pixmantec raw shooter as it was the only program I found made my old raws look good 4 years ago.. then Adobe bought it and it seemed to have gotten even better.
I've tried to use CS4's raw program but it seems like its just harder for me to organize, WB, and crop in one fail swoop. I use CS4 for touchups and such and use lightroom for the horsepower.
Does this mean that you don't use Bridge at all any more?
Bridge is excellent for what it was designed for .... a bridge between the Creative Suite of applications.
I use it when doing page layout and design when bouncing to and fro with PS and InDesign ... Bridge has the great ability of working with diverse types of files, images, documents, pdf and even video files .... it does have it;s place as a browser in my workflow. Just not at the top of my list for image organization or batch processing RAW image files.
butchM wrote:
Bridge is excellent for what it was designed for .... a bridge between the Creative Suite of applications.
I use it when doing page layout and design when bouncing to and fro with PS and InDesign ... Bridge has the great ability of working with diverse types of files, images, documents, pdf and even video files .... it does have it;s place as a browser in my workflow. Just not at the top of my list for image organization or batch processing RAW image files.
Right, I still like Bridge and especially Bridge in CS4. It's much improved over CS3 and quite useful. Switching between the 8 different included/standard views really helps in browsing.
I've tried LR a few times, wanted to like it, but found it slow, and unintuitive compared to Bridge/ACR.
I probably could get used to using LR, but doing things like navigating a Raw image (zooming in, moving around) is much faster in ACR CS4 than LR2. I find LR2 just too laggy.
You're right, musclepics, in some respects Bridge/ACR is much faster and more intuitive. However, I'm beginning to appreciate the search-able database format of LR. One thing that Bridge cannot do is search more than the folder you're in whereas LR will quickly search your entire catalog of images. Once, of course, you've applied keywords to your collection of images.
I do only run a 2.4Ghz Dual-Core with 2GB Ram in W7 x64, so a new i7 system with 12GB Ram would hopefully help make LR as fast as Bridge/ACR for image reviews. Or is LR2 still pretty laggy on new systems?
musclepics wrote:
I do only run a 2.4Ghz Dual-Core with 2GB Ram in W7 x64, so a new i7 system with 12GB Ram would hopefully help make LR as fast as Bridge/ACR for image reviews. Or is LR2 still pretty laggy on new systems?
I'm not well versed on Windows systems ... but it has been my experience that most Adobe apps will always benefit from as much RAM as you can throw at them .... sometimes more RAM, as long it is within the limits that the app can recognize and address, will boost performance more than a faster processor and using less RAM.
OP I believe what a number of posters are referring to is the catalogue in LR that stores (I am no expert, maybe soemone else can explain better) thumbnails of all images plus all editing information in the database structure that you designed. It does this for all of your hard drives, even those you only use to store images and are not normally connected to your computer. For someone with major image numbers, really good instead of lugging all harddrives around on each trip. If the database fuctions are not interesting to you, then since you have CS4 already, $300 might indeed be a bit stiff.
Thomas
LR runs pretty quickly on my system, which is as you describe, i7 and 12 GB RAM. However, if I open a big file it can still take a few seconds to load all the previews but I wouldn't call it laggy.
tbcgron,
The database functions are, as it's turning out, the most interesting part of LR. I'm still trying to decide whether or not to buy it. I don't find the slideshow or print modules of much interest (yet at least), the develop module is ACR with a slightly different interface and the library offers few improvements over Bridge in CS4.
If LR cost $100 it would be a much easier decision.
